Are you still reading blogs? Do you still use an RSS readers such as Bloglines or Google Reader? Or do you get most of your blog fix from Twitter?
Many of us who have embraced Twitter have discovered that we spend less time on Google Reader, et al because the people we follow on Twitter are providing enough interesting links to a variety of content, including blogs.
On TechCrunchIT, Steve Gillmor argues “RSS doesn’t cut it anymore” and that “RSS is a shell of its former self, casually subsumed as the transport for 140+ content into the social stream”.
For people who spend a lot of time online, RSS has lost some of its appeal for the following reasons:
1. This demographic consumes a lot of information so the prospect of combing through an ever-growing number of blogs within an increasingly-neglected RSS reader can be daunting.
2. Since these people are so time-strapped, they are constantly looking for ways to prioritize/filter the blogs they do read. This explains why Twitter has emerged as a consumption tool because it, in theory, you only see the links provided by people you trust (aka follow)
Of course, it is important to recognize that people such as Steve Gillmor (and myself, for that matter) aren’t representative of the online community. We – and most Twitter users – consume a lot of information, and looking for new, cool tools to consume it. We’re also fickle, gravitating to new, shiny tools before abandoning them when they move into the mainstream.
While Gillmor’s thesis probably rings true with the digerati, it is premature to blow off RSS as a dead or dying concept. In many ways, RSS is evolving to serve the needs of people better. Waterloo, Ont.-based PostRank is an example of a company putting a new twist on RSS with a service to filter and prioritize the most interesting blogs.
Links: Some more thoughts on how we’re consuming content comes from WebWorkerDaily’s Eric Berlin.
9 Comments
While PostRank was created to deal with feed reader overload, we're part of that group finding a lot of our information via Twitter, etc. these days, too. It was the main motivation behind creating the Newsroom. Seemed like a logical next step — RSS feeds via Twitter.
At the same time, I don't think RSS is dead. I agree that only a small portion of the online community consumes information in the same ways and at the same volume as those of us in the echo chamber. And those folks might not even really know what RSS is, but they're still using it to keep up with their friends on Facebook, check hockey scores, and other ways that they might not know are RSS.
RSS was developed for a purpose, and like every other technology it needs to earn its keep and evolve to remain useful. Piping feeds through feed readers might not be the way of the future, but that's not to say some other RSS-fed information conduit isn't.
In any case, thanks for the mention. (We're trying to evolve to remain useful, too.)
Completely disagree, and I expect both will continue to exists. Each has their place: twitter – quick dissemination of info to group with feedback; RSS – notification of original source content I am interested. It’s like a personal newspaper every day waiting with fresh new content.
As you say, shiny new toys, but you and techcrunch are not the mainstream market and you have to be careful that you are looking through the lens of an early adopter. Just like there was another group before you that decried when twitter became popular, technology popularity comes in waves.
At the end of the day, the mainstream market will decide and it’s usually determined on the ease-of-use. RSS was never that easy to use until Google Reader etc. I am still amazed at how poor the twitter interfaces are and the fact that third parties are driving the innovation. The story is unwritten and only time will tell, but calling RSS dead already I think is premature.
RSS is here to stay, with me at least
I still like to know I control WHEN and WHERE I want information (pull), vs Twitter where information are kinda pushed to me, whether I want it or not. At the moment I am anti-twitter, and Google Reader is #1 in my book (that's how i got to this page)
I disagree as well. The two have different uses. I use Twitter more for real-time information (once its an hour or two old I'm not going to be looking at it – I likely won't even see it). So anytime I'm not in front of Twitter and actually have time to click links I'm not going to even see that it was posted.
As for RSS, its sitting there waiting for me to read when I have the time to read it. I can be a week behind in catching up on some feeds and its still there for me.
As a developer I continue to develop services which consume and publish RSS. RSS is all about structured content delivery and has features that make it easily consumable on the net by software (it has syntax like that of XML after all).
Remember that post the other day you mentioned about journalism dying because of the lack of newspapers? Many of us had mentioned that journalism isn't dead, it is just going online. RSS is the driving force behind much of that. It is after all "Really Simple Syndication".
I disagree completely and agree with all the other commenter, RSS is by no means dead. An saying so is a complete lack of understanding of technology. I'll keep on telling people, Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, et al are SERVICES, RSS on the other hand is a technology. This is like comparing Apples with Oranges. What Steve Gilmore wants to say, and even Mark says here is that for them, reading blogs is something of the past.
I agree with them in that, for some users, specially early adopter bloggers, fresh information can be gathered better from real time streams (although @Tim has a very good point). Nevertheless, that's one thing, and another is to say RSS is dead. It's like saying, Internet is dead when you want to say, I declared email bankruptcy. RSS is a standard based in xml, and it's used in plenty of things, not only blogs. It's generally a poll technology, but it can even work as push (SUP), so saying it's dead is just a complete lack of understanding.
Semantics, semantics, semantics
I am an active twitter user. I am also using RSS via iGoogle. I have set up a dozen thematic tabs, each with a variety of 'off the shelf" feeds from an array of theme specific publishers and, more importantly, dozens of key-word based feeds. This provides me with easily skimmed, broadly sourced information, organized by specific topics I track. Currently Twitter is orders of magnitude less productive and less effective than iGoogle.
Final point, are you sure twitter does not use RSS?
Alec Saunders created a blog entry on this exact topic today as well (http://bit.ly/gvAC0), so if you'll forgive me – I'll just copy/paste my comment from there….
To dust off the old cliches…Twitter is a mile wide and an inch deep.
And, as usual, someone much smarter than me explained the depth of thought situation effectively (yet another reason to never abandon the RSS feeds).
http://bit.ly/Z6P0f
Twitter helps me discover some interesting new things or track an active meme, but there are some deep thinkers out there who I like to keep track of. Without RSS this is a tough job. Using Twitter to do it – impossible.
Mark,
You are exactly describing the problem of Blog Overload. But filters aren't enough to deal with this. And sooner or later the problem will repeat on Twitter as either you follow more people or they crank up the volume of their tweets.
This is why we created Bscopes. It's a graphical approach to viewing the Blogosphere. You can use it to cut through the clutter. It's a supplement to your text based feed reader.
We'd be very interested in any feedback you can give on our approach. You can find the Bscope of the Mark Evans Blog at: http://www.bscopes.com/viewbscope.html?feedid=107...
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Rest in Peace, RSS? I Don’t Think So….
TechcrunchIT has a piece on RSS. It suggested that with Twitter’s popularity, RSS is no longer needed.
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